CONNOR

 

His face hovers over me,

His tears fall onto my body.

I hear his anguished cries,

I hear him scream my name.

I feel blood

oozing out of my body,

my head, my heart.

Sirens are wailing in the distance,

coming closer and closer.

I hear him cry out in relief

as paramedics try to fix

my mangled body.

I want to talk to him.

“It’s no use.”

I didn’t fall three stories

to be saved.

They say 

you regret it 

as you fall.

But I didn’t.

His voice swims in my ears,

his face in my fading thoughts.

I wish he wasn’t here,

I wish I was dead.

I tried so hard.

Why am I still here?

His arms unwrap from around me,

as they load me into the ambulance.

The box.

There are voices all around me,

but his is different than the rest.

Even as I am carried away,

I can still hear him

calling my name.

The doors to the ambulance close,

and I am in the box.

It is a box of sirens

a box of cries

a box of paramedics

a box of people trying to keep me alive.

I don’t want to be alive.

If I don’t die 

in this box,

then I will make sure

that he does.

 

A YEAR LATER

ELLIOT

 

APRIL 16

A year ago,

on this day,

my best friend,

Connor,

jumped off the roof of our school

and fell

three stories down.

He was twelve years old.

I found him first.

His head met the concrete,

his eyes glassy and glazed,

And blood.

So 

much

blood.

I did what I was used to.

When my mother jumped,

when my sister jumped.

My mother died,

my sister died.

I wouldn’t let Connor die,

so I called

the ambulance.

Connor never liked ambulances.

He told me so 

when he broke his arm,

and we rode the ambulance together.

“I don’t like ambulances,”

He had said.

“They’re like boxes.”

Connor always called them boxes.

I saved Connors life,

by calling that ambulance.

but I put him in the box,

that he hated so much.

and I never knew why.

I never pushed.

Still, 

I put him in the box.

And maybe that’s why

he doesn’t want

to see me

anymore.

APRIL 17

The day Connor woke up,

I was there.

I watched him

open his eyes

and the first thing he saw

was me.

I remember how

his eyes darkened.

I remember how

he screamed.

I remember how

I found myself 

thrown out of the room

looking at his parents’

remorseful eyes.

“I don’t know why 

he doesn’t want to see you,”

They said.

“I’m sorry, Elliot.”

I remember blinking away tears

until I was out of the hospital.

I walked back to school 

locked the door to my dorm,

and cried.

When he was discharged,

he was sent to a school 

closer to his house.

 but not too far away

for me to come visit

every once in a while.

I went to his house once,

but his parents 

shut the door on me.

“Stop trying, Elliot,”

They said,

“He doesn’t want to see you.”

I miss him

every day.

I wonder how

he’s doing now?

MAY 3

Today somebody died.

he was in my grade, 

Tommy Mitchell.

He was found in the school bathroom,

stabbed. 

He died in the ambulance.

MAY 4

Someone else in my grade died.

It was a girl,

Charlotte Blake.

She was found in her dorm room,

unconscious.

She was poisoned.

She died in the ambulance.

MAY 5

The third kill was today.

A boy.

Shot in the stomach.

Died in the ambulance.

MAY 6

Girl. 

Hit by a car.

Died in the ambulance.

MAY 7

Every day

someone in our grade is killed.

MAY 8

And every day,

they die

in the ambulance.

MAY 9

I can’t help but think,

Connor?

JUNE 13

School’s out

but they keep dying

in the ambulance.

In the box.

AUGUST 9

Everyone in my grade

is dead

except me.

I know

it’s Connor.

And I know

tomorrow

is my turn.

AUGUST 10

I go to my dorm today,

to move back into it

for the school year.

there is a note

on my desk.

1 a.m.

Lockton Gym.

It’s your turn.

AUGUST 11

1 A.M.

School is empty

at one in the morning.

I know I shouldn’t be here.

I should’ve ignored the note.

But I haven’t seen

Connor

in months.

I open the doors

to the gym,

preparing

for my death.

The room is lit

like it is during P.E.

It doesn’t look like

someone is about to die.

There is a figure at the end 

of the room.

I know 

that it’s him.

As I walk 

towards him,

I notice his features.

brown eyes,

heavy and sunken

bags of black and blue

weighing them down.

His hair

once long and golden

cut short

and dyed black.

His face looks hollow

like it might collapse.

He looks

dead. 

Like he was never

saved at all.

Like I never

called the ambulance.

The box.

I shudder.

He sees me

and his broken face

stretches

into a smile.

A grin

of pure evil.

And then

I knew.

Connor was saved,

but my best friend

died. 

“Elliot,”

Connor says to me

as I approach.

“It’s been

such a long time.”

The tears

that I’ve been holding in

since the day Connor fell

are set free.

“You were always

such a coward,”

Connor laughs,

upon seeing my tears.

“Such a

crybaby.”

I wipe my tears

and look up at him.

he was always

taller than me.

I have only one question

for the boy in front of me

pretending to be

 my best friend.

“Why?”

Connor steps forward.

I step back.

“Because,”

He says,

“You saved me.

I didn’t fall

three stories

to be saved.”

He steps forward.

I step back.

“You know

my mother died,”

I say.

“You know 

my sister died.

I couldn’t let you

die too.”

He steps forward.

I step back. 

“That’s not

for you 

to decide,”

He replies.

A step forward.

A step back.

“How could

you jump?

how could

you leave me?”

Forward.

Back. 

“There’s nothing

here for me.

we live

to die.

So I 

did the dying

early.”

Forward.

Back.

My foot

hits something.

Probably

some equipment.

Without looking, 

I step over it.

My foot hits something

that is not 

the gym floor.

Wood.

“They say 

you regret it 

as you fall,”

Connor says,

“But I didn’t.”

I look down

at my feet.

They stand on wood.

Walls around me.

I am in

a box.

A box

just big enough to fit me

like a coffin.

There are wheels

on the bottom.

No holes,

no way to breathe.

And it is

painted 

to look like

an ambulance.

I look at Connor

with frightened eyes.

“Why?”

“You called

the box.

You shoved me 

in the box.

and now I

will trap you

in the box.”

I am too

scared

to move.

Too scared

to step

out of the box.

Too scared

to run.

Connor’s words

stick in my head.

We live

to die.

And now

I know

why Connor hates

ambulances.

He hated

ambulances,

hospitals,

doctors.

Anything

that saved

your life.

We live

to die.

I just did

the dying

early.

Before 

I can speak,

something

-someone-

pushes me

down.

I feel myself

fall

my body

matching the shape

of the box.

I hear

a lid

shut over me.

“Goodbye,

Elliot,”

Connor says.

I hear him laugh,

slowly 

going

insane.

Goodbye,

Connor.

It is dark

inside the box.

It is dark 

inside my mind.

Only now

do I struggle

as I lose air

as I lose my life.

I kick

and scream 

but it’s a waste

of precious oxygen

and time.

Before I succumb 

to death,

I try

one last thing

to save

my life.

My eyes close

as I drift away.

The last thing I hear

before I am

suffocated

by the box:

sirens. 

 

CONNOR

Sirens.

Sirens fill my mind.

I open my mouth

to let the words out.

 

“WEEEEEE-OOOOOOO,

WEEEEEE-OOOOOOOO!”

I am running

my feet flying

from underneath me.

I am flying.

I am flying high.

High to the sky.

High to the sky as I die.

The ambulance-box 

is in my hands.

I am pushing it around

round and around and around…

I hear

siren songs

and I

am screaming them.

He is screaming too.

I cackle as I hear him cry.

He is going

to die.

“Don’t cry,” I tell him.

“Soon, you’ll die.”

But the words

never leave my mouth.

Or do they?

I don’t know.

I can’t remember.

He is suffocating

in the box.

The box that saves lives.

I have taken

so many lives

inside the box.

He is 

the last one.

my grand finale.

And now

the box has stopped.

I am panting,

and in the box

there is silence.

He finally gave in

to the sirens.

Now,

I am moving.

My arms are moving.

What am I doing?

Oh, there’s more

to my plan.

Gasoline.

Matches.

Fire.

The gym

is on fire.

The school

is on fire.

The box

is on fire.

He

is on fire.

I 

am on fire.

Finally

I am free.

I sit

on top

of the ambulance.

The box.

And I 

burn.

I can hear

sirens.

He must have called them

to try and save

his life.

It’s too late.

I tell him.

I can hear it coming

closer and closer

to try and save

our lives.

But we’re

already

dead.

The last thing I hear

before I succumb

to the flames:

The siren song

the ambulance

the box.